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Ewan makes it a hat-trick of wins at the OVO Tour of Britain

23-year-old Caleb Ewan had claimed an impressive third stage victory at the OVO Tour of Britain with a convincing sprint on today’s stage six.

ORICA-SCOTT worked for the majority of the stage, leading the peloton to control the distance to a breakaway of seven riders that escaped in the early stages of the 186kilometre stage.

In the final, lead-out duo Roger Kluge and Luka Mezgec worked to get the young Australian into a good position and after the final corner, Ewan launched from out of the wheels, established a gap and held on until the line for the victory.

“It was another pretty tough day again, not really straight forward as the weather was pretty bad all day,” Ewan said. “The team rode so well, we stayed up near the front out of trouble all day and the guys again did a prefect job at the end.”

“There was a bit of sketchy moment in the final corner and I had to go early. I had a little bit of a gap coming out of the corner but everybody was coming back into positions so I took the chance to jump.

“It was a little bit earlier than I wanted to go but I wanted to get into my aero position and hold as much speed as possible so it is great to hold on and get another stage win here.

“Tomorrow is going to be pretty tough but the last stage could be a bunch sprint again.”

How it happened:

After yesterday’s time trial stage, the riders headed to the start line in Newmarket ready for stage six, a 186kilometre fairly flat day but with the presence of rain.

After a fast start and 25kilometres of racing, seven riders rode out to two and a half minutes ahead of the peloton and the situation remained that way for most of the day as the kilometres ticked down.

The rain continued to pour as ORICA-SCOTT and Lotto-JumboNL set a steady tempo at the front of the bunch, not giving the leaders too much freedom.

Team Sky joined in with the chase and with 10kilometres to go the gap was down to just 30seconds as the breakaway started to attack in a last chance attempt.

With just three kilometres remaining, the race was all back together again with Kluge, Mezgec and Ewan up at the front of the peloton in the perfect position with one kilometre to go.

Out of the final corner, Ewan jumped and put distance between himself and the others to claim his third stage victory for the team.